1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid developer (sometimes referred to as an electrophotographic liquid developer) for use in electrophotography, electrostatic recording, electrostatic printing and the like and to image forming methods using the electrophotographic liquid developer. In addition, the present invention also relates to an image forming apparatus and method using the liquid developer.
2. Discussion of the Background
Electrophotographic developers are classified into dry developers and liquid developers. Liquid developers have an advantage over dry developers in that clearer images can be prepared because of the inclusion of a toner having a finer particle diameter than that of the toner included in dry developers.
Liquid developers are typically prepared by dispersing a resin, a colorant and a charge controlling agent in a carrier liquid made of a non-aqueous solvent having a high electric resistance. The particle diameter of the toner dispersed in such liquid developers is typically from 0.1 to 2.0 μm.
In the above-mentioned conventional, electrophotographic developers, a non-aqueous solvent having a high boiling point is typically used as the carrier liquid to prevent the carrier liquid from evaporating, resulting in stabilization of the developers. Such a non-aqueous solvent having a high boiling point has good stability, but has a drawback in that fixation of the image is not satisfactory, such that images fade away when rubbed for example by a finger because the carrier liquid tends to remain in a toner layer and on a receiving material after the images are fixed.
Therefore, the development of an electrophotographic liquid developer having high image density and capable of having high resolution image is desired.